New Media Theory/Practice

shared class blog for MCS 234, Fall 2015

[mynameisdanielshinbaum]

24/7 Response

It is difficult to take issue with Jonathan Crary’s analysis of the increasingly commodified world of late capitalism that we inhibit. He makes the case that nearly every aspect of life has become an opportunity for engaging in the culture of capitalism. The few areas that have been the slowest to adapt to commodification are the areas that are necessary for any healthy life: food and drink, sexual desire, friendship, and sleep. His book focuses on final of these, but it would be interesting to look at how the other needs have been worked into systems of capitalist consumption. One issue I have with Crary is that he offers no alternative to the type of capitalist society that he sees the world trending towards. He doesn’t even acknowledge the possibility that other forms of consumption outside the system of capitalist can exist world that is rapidly progressing technologically. But of course there are alternate ways that technology can be integrated in other parts of the world. It would be naïve to assume that just because the social and economic order happened to emerge in this way in Europe it is bound to follow this structure as the rest of the world develops. However, even though Marxist methods of consumption could in theory exist, it is unlikely that they will take root. The US and rest of the developed world is not an isolated bubble, and they are imposing capitalism onto the global South through channels of exploitation. The global south is being forced to industrialize as developed nations outsource their environmentally harmful practices away from restrictive national policies. This is bringing more countries into the folds of global capitalism end setting them on the same gloomy track that Crary insists the US is heading. The other issue I have with Crary’s writing in 24/7 is that he makes all sorts of sweeping generalizations. But I feel like not much of it applies to me, and most individuals would feel the same way even after reading it. Rarely do I think to myself “I am such a docile consumer,” yet that it was Crary is suggesting everyone is. Maybe other people are docile consumers, but not me. I think most people assume that they are more aware than the masses of other that Crary is describing, and his writing comes of as slightly condescending in that way.

[mynameisdanielshinbaum]

Time Tracking Response

Today I was talking with a friend about time management in studying for finals, and they recommended I download the app Pomodoro. The app lets the user assign tasks that need to be completed, with the goal of getting 10 (or a customizable amount) of these tasks done each day. The user can then select one of their tasks, and Pomodoro will start a 25-minute countdown. After the time runs out the user is rewarded with a 5-minute break, and the cycle of pomodoros repeats, with the user checking off tasks as they are completed.

The technique is highly reward-based. The user is being rewarded often with short breaks, and a longer break every four “pomodoros.” The user also is rewarded with more break time after they finish a long task. I think this emphasis on rewards reflects the 24/7 late capitalism we live within by turning time directly into a currency within the app. The user accumulates “money” by staying on task for 25 minutes, and then they spend it on a short break, or a longer break after they save up a surplus of time-dollars. 

The app tries to separate activities into discrete chunks. During each chunk of work the user is supposed to only focus on the task at hand and block out all other distractions. This gives the appearance that while someone is working, they are abstaining from shopping. The app looks like it is trying to shield the user from the distractions of capitalist consumption, when actually the user is working to save up and spend their time-dollars in half an hour. They are in a cycle where they get to return to consumer activities every half hour.

By building breaks into these activities the app is working on the dichotomy between public and private life that Hannah Arendt describes. When the user is actively working on their task during the long blocks, they are in public life. Their action is being regulated with the intention of limiting their behavior to only working on the task at hand. But during their breaks the users enter into private life where they can recuperate from the exhaustion of work.

The app pathologizes the mismanagement of time. Pomodoro is the necessary solution to keep ones life organized. Historically apps for time management have not been available until recently, but now they are becoming essential. Pomodoro and similar apps have created a new market that they dominate. And the free version of Pomodoro that I downloaded has certain limits built in that can only be bypassed by purchasing the full upgraded version.

[nicholaslynnriordan-blog]

Week 15 Response:  24/7

Jonathan Crary examines how capitalism has increasingly attempted to remove physical and natural influences to productivity in order to maximize the amount of money earned.  Capitalism has encroached upon what Crary believes is the sole barrier between wholesale integration of the phenomenon:  Sleep.  Precious, precious sleep.  Crary points out the ways in which sleep patterns have changed during the age of capitalism, with people sleeping gradually less and technologies being employed that would render the practice obsolete.  

While he discusses the history of capitalism’s encroachment upon society, Crary fails to examine or even mention the mechanisms which led to the creation of capitalism, and I am talking about religion.  That’s right, the world can “thank” Protestantism for the creation and intensification of the capitalist system we live in today.  Max Weber made this argument in his analysis of Christian theology during the Reformation, where it all started with Martin Luther.  

Martin Luther took exception to the Catholic notion that both faith and works will result in one’s entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven after noting how richer people in the Catholic institutions used essentially bribes to assure themselves of entrance.  Luther believed that faith and believe alone will assure entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, railing against the concept of indulgences.  Luther’s envision of the Christian also contrasted heavily with the monastic life of Catholicism, which he felt did not adequately integrate the Christian into the world.  To remedy this, Luther crafted the idea of The Calling, encouraging Christians to use their work from God to serve others. Reformer John Calvin  elaborated on Luther’s idea, stating God called Christians to a duty in the world.  Each individual received this special direct link with God.  Unlike Lutherans, Calvinists believe in predestination; therefore, they cannot be saved by faith.  Because of this, they to some extent return to the Catholic doctrine of “works” to demonstrate their status as elect.  In this case, however, “works” equates to the calling.  Since the calling serves as one of the few ways Calvinists have a direct link with God, it almost becomes like a Catholic sacrament, which help the sacrament’s performer become closer to God.  Devoid of other ways to measure their righteousness, one’s success in the calling shows it.  God’s grace becomes manifest through material wealth.  This material wealth then signified spiritual wealth.  Material wealth would be accumulated by working longer hours and increasing productivity, which eventually led to capitalism coming out of the feudal system in Europe.  

Those who settled in North America were instilled with these theological values and helped bring capitalism to the level of absurdity Crary points to today.  Processes often are best understood when thought of through how they originated, and without addressing the theological underpinnings which explain why the world (and America in particular) adhere so closely to these beliefs, his analysis is inadequate.  

[amandadoesnewmedia-blog]

Wk 15 Response: 24/7

While definitely a bit of a Debbie Downer, Crary raises in 24/7 some pretty thought-provoking ideas about our increasingly capitalist (dis)regard for sleep and its diminishing role in our lives. He oscillates between celebrating sleep as the one exception of a human need that cannot be “colonized and harnessed to a massive engine of profitability” (24/7, 11), and allying with the more disparaging argument that sleep represents the passive, unproductive side of human nature. Yet, I feel that despite his tone his message is unconsciously optimistic, as it is this inability to reconcile the two arguments that ultimately prompts us to better appreciate the phenomenon of sleep.

Crary points to a “homogenizing force of capitalism” (13) that is slowly but surely eroding our individuality and even culture – and I agree. The constant pressure to be ahead in the rat race is enough reason for anyone to start feeling that “sleep is now an experience cut loose from notions of necessity or nature” (13). (Fun fact: the first known use of the word ‘all-nighter’ was in 1964 – curiously recent.) However, I find Crary’s statement describing sleep as a regression to a lower and more primitive mode of humanity inhibiting higher brain activity (12), to be overly condescending. It is precisely because of this process of losing our individuality and human nature that, through sleep, the ability to retain hold over something intrinsic to what is “naturally” human and what distinguishes us from mindless robots, becomes a point of celebration. While the powerlessness of slumber might deprive us from the “operation of the mind or the pursuit of knowledge’” (12), its redeeming factor is that sleep returns us to “’the true kernel’ of human existence” (12). If the biggest fear surrounding our persistent pursuit of knowledge and technological advancement is our increasing (ominous) likeability to cyborgs, it is then this facet of humanness that we should be prioritizing to prevent that.

In addition, I find Crary’s notion of “sleep mode” very fascinating – the idea of having an available “state of low-power readiness” (13) for us to access when we need respite or a deferred condition of operationality seems like a viable compromise between the conflicting arguments above, and should be viewed as a positive new phenomenon instead of a dystopian one. Crary’s dramatic declaration that “sleep mode” creates a situation in which one is never in an actual state of rest seems to reflect his resistance towards an ever-evolving, fast-paced world and the need to adapt ourselves to it. “Sleep mode” should instead be celebrated as an active attempt to bridge capitalism’s encroaching on our human essence, and our retainment of it. And though it might not be the true state of pure rest we seek, if moving towards a complete disregard and abandonment of sleep is indeed inevitable, the least we can do to preserve our humanity is to simulate it.

Amanda Chai

[apparentlythisisntfacebook-blog]

24/7 By Jonathan Crary essentially argues: Capitalism deems sleep an insufficient product of humanity– stop consuming.

Sleep detracts from the productivity–production and consumption–of a neoliberal capitalist society. I agree with his argument in its entirety. Additionally, I believe there is an interesting juxtaposition with the idea of sleep in humans and “sleep mode” in technology and the paradoxical shutting/breaking down completely. 

Crary calls sleep, for humans, “an uncompromising interruption of the theft of time from us by capitalism”, but within the realm of technology “sleep mode” implies rest– not completely turned off–, thus, the ability to regain productivity is still relatively easy and in humans sleep can be easily interrupted (touch of the mouse/shake of a human). This “sleep” isn’t as insufficient as “shutting down,” or as I would like to interpret that in human behavior “breaking down.” Which means that sleep, as in technology, isn’t the worst thing looming over a neoliberal capitalist society, a break down is.

I am able to equate “shutting down” to “breaking down” due to the process of both actions. Shutting down a computer physically closes all applications and ceases all abilities of the computer. The screen goes blank. The keyboard and mouse no longer work, the electricity used to power the computer is useless. 

Breaking down (having a mental break down) in humans means that the “applications” that fill your mind no longer work. You cannot communicate with others, you cannot complete normal tasks and you have no sense of time. Your motor skills (i.e. keyboard and mouse) are shot, and you are not longer able to properly function in everyday life– the electricity that attempts to fuel you (food and drink) is not longer sufficient for your productivity. 

The importance of categorizing “Break Down” as a harsher degree of consequence than “Sleep Mode” is that as the pressures of productivity caused by neoliberal capitalism, if not regulated by sleep (among other things necessary for a balanced life), will cause a “Break Down”, and would beget, for lack of a better term, a complete reboot of someone’s system. 

24/7 argues the beginning of the problems caused by capitalism. The pressures themselves have room to cause complete inefficiency within some people. This being said, if sleep is trying to be replaced by advances in technology, is our ability to be overworked and have feelings trying to be replaced as well?

 Is part of our human nature trying to be replaced?

The answer is yes. And that’s where the cyborg manifesto takes over.   

[warmramune]

week 15: 24/7

Jonathan Crary describes and critiques humanity’s ever-increasing reliance on technology and subsequently growing refusal of natural functions such as sleep in 24/7. With the rise in availability and accessibility in technology, “the demand for mandatory 24/7 immersion in visual content effectively becomes a new form of institutional super-ego” (47).  People see increasingly less value in inherently necessary actions such as sleep because while void of conscious thought, people lose the ability to work productively. Crary provides examples of government projects and psychological forms of torture that involve attempting to reduce necessary sleep time and the long-term effects of living without sleep.

(The images are from No Game No Life, an anime in which two siblings enter a virtual world structured around videogame-like law)

According to Crary, humans act as disposable devices for economic systems such as capitalism to develop and flourish; “when people have nothing further that can be taken from them, whether resources or labor power, they are quite simply disposable” (44). While Crary refutes Stiegler’s ideas that “the standardization of experience on such a large scale […] entails a loss of subjective identity and singularity” (51), Crary’s belief that “a new blandness flourishes everywhere that accelerated consumption has become normalized” (56) seems like an almost overly cynical approach to modern society’s attachment to technology. Crary neglects the benefits to a society in which technology is readily accessible to a large percentage of the population, thus allowing processes such as communication as a whole to develop into a largely available action. Although Crary believes that “many who celebrate the transformative potential of communication networks are oblivious to the oppressive forms of human labor and environmental ravages on which their fantasies of virtuality and dematerialization depend” (49), humanity will nonetheless continue to attempt to move toward a world submerged in virtuality.

Jennifer Muraoka

[media-sea-blog]

Week 16 Response

Jonathan Crary raises awareness about modern society’s technological advancement involuntarily eliciting the denouncement of sleep. Considering that sleep is constitutive of human life at a basic level, 24/7 threatens this imperative of our existence. He characterizes this state as a “generalized inscription of human life into duration without breaks, defined by a principle of continuous functioning. It is a time that no longer passes, beyond clock time.” He further states that 24/7 is a state of indifference in which the “fragility of human life is increasingly inadequate and within which sleep has no necessity or inevitability.” However, his arguments convey a pessimistic vision of the future in which humans cannot compete with the power of the machine do not persuade me completely. I agree that capitalism and the digitization of culture is machinic in nature and that the human need for sleep can be viewed as the “culprit” to our inefficiency compared to digital devices that only require electrical input to function endlessly.

Nevertheless, I disagree with the relentless negativity his arguments perpetuate and the sense of doom that is embedded in his ideological discussion. Especially when he uses the smartphone as an example of the economic and social re-organization that is emblematic of neoliberalism. The phone represents two opposing ideas: one is that there is a mass standardization and the other is that there is the division into micro worlds. Ultimately, we all are looking at the same screen, but living in an increasingly separate world in which collective experience is impossible. I agree with Crary in that we are starting to live in a more rhizomatic world, but because of this, we are more interconnected than ever. There are draw backs to certain aspects of the 24/7 world and sleep deprivation is certainly one, but the sense of a globally unified culture is also to be felt. Furthermore, I modern day capitalism and our seemingly 24/7 world is not going to render us as the “wretched slave” of machines. As humans, we have survived for hundreds of years in the absence of technology that is meant to make live easier. Therefore, this re-organization of society that Crary describes with the smartphone example should allow room for adaptation of culture, rather than extinction of the collective experience.

Markus

[cecevissch-blog]

Week 15: 24/7

Jonathan Crary’s argument on the contemporary state of the individual within the capitalist model is altogether persuasive within the rhetoric he constructs. The persuasiveness of his arguments rests in its relevance to most of its readers for we are the consumers to which he refers. His conception of the “24/7” acts as the umbrella term to which he applies infinite consumption and all of its most relevant and destructive implications, is relatively easy to absorb, for it follows the trend of neoliberalism to both support and critique itself. As indoctrinated members of the modern age, 24/7 seems almost intuitive and formulaic in its assertions for it is aligned with the fatalistic mentality that have surrounded technological advancement since mechanization’s inception: we have been conditioned to fear, or at the very least question, technological progress.

           Crary’s persuasiveness is heightened by his fear-mongering, as the individual is pitted in the a widely unacknowledged battle against the machine; pointless competition that cannot be won, because, as Crary states, the living being cannot match the efficiency of technology. Our inefficacy is placed on the shoulders of sleep, the one area that remains sanctified, untouched by the consumerist ideology. Sleep has maintained its ties to the natural rhythms that have dominated human existence for centuries, impervious to the operational demand of 24/7 capitalism. However, the technological advancements that Crary utilizes to support his claims are often hypothetical, on the verge of paranoiac.

  Despite the persuasiveness of Crary’s message, I am less inclined to submit to his ideological stance, mostly because he poses no means of escape or available alternatives to the 24/7. In it essence, his these can be reduced fatalistic criticism. Without any meaningful alternative, the critique of the modern state of being and the implications of late capitalism falls flat. Furthermore, in his fatalistic endeavor, he often reduces the individual, completely stripped of any self-efficacy, power, or autonomy. If this is the case, than he envisions himself superior to the 24/7 individual in not only his ability to see through the manipulative designs of 24/7, but more importantly in his ability to rise above his constraints. However, this makes his critique worthless, for without empowerment of the individual, his claims cannot be utilized to further the rebuilding of the domination of the living being.

[newmediatheorypractice]

Cecelia Visscher

[mcstie]

24/7

While Crary’s summary of the effects of modern technology on humans raises a number of subtle, relevant, and valid points, it unnecessarily simplifies certain aspects of such technology in order to create a fatalistic view of modern society. Though this tone effectively causes the reader to consider Crary’s many valid arguments, his book offers little respite from the problems he so exactingly outlines.

Crary’s strongest arguments enter into direct conversations with more optimistic theories on the digitizing potential of modern technology. In opposition to Haraway, he reminds the reader that an increasing dependence and reliance on technology also means an increasing dependence on the multinational corporations that create this technology. Furthermore, he recapitulates the problems mentioned in The Californian Ideology - we use technology as an attempt to virtualize ourselves and our interactions with one another and with the enivronment, removing the consequences of our actions from our direct line of sight. This makes it easier for us to ignore the environment and one another, enabling the narcissism that so successfully distracts us from our problematic impacts with new routines and products that are essential parts of fitting in to contemporary society. Instead, we worry about keeping up with the endlessly updating innovations of “right now”, which, again, furthers our dependency on the creators of these innovations. 

Beyond this, Crary argues that modern technology narrows our collective experiences of perception, which again makes us increasingly compliant. Instead of the natural rhythms of human life, centered around an understanding of collectivity and connectivity, we rely on the rhythms of these machines, which work to optimize and monetize the human experience. In Crary’s view, this means reducing human aspects of these systems to routine processes. Though Crary’s argument makes clear the dangers of a society reliant upon these technologies, he glosses over the fact that such technologies- and the corporations that control them - are run and controlled by humans. Though the logic of such systems is fast replacing the logic of humans and their weaknesses, there is necessarily always a human component to “the corporation” or “the government” which controls them, which means that the logic of these systems can be manipulated and understood by everyday people as well. So long as we work to educate a wide group of people about the way these technologies operate, we can continue to find members of our society that break with and manipulate the accepted uses and responses to these technologies.

Despite his many valid points, Crary’s arguments ignore the relative aspects of these innovations. Crary argues that it is no longer the type of innovation, but rather the speed of innovation that disrupts our ability to adjust to new technology, sending us into a frenzy of working to find the best new thing. This ignores the reality of many people’s situations - not everyone can afford to buy a new iPhone every time one comes out, and though empathizing through these virtual objects removes the responsibility of direct interaction with another person, it does not erase empathy completely. We may never be completely adjusted to the speed of innovation again, but we will continue to adjust to these new technologies in time. In this, we maintain the same balance between comfortable technology and new innovations that past generations have. 

See, for example, the “digital natives” who use their smartphones for Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and other social networks that have no inherent connection with the people of their real lives. The way young people use these networks is inherently a collective experience - Twitter and Tumblr are rampant breeding grounds for fandoms, groups of collective excitement about a given piece of media or personality. Of course, these websites are also used for self promotion and for narcissistic ends as well, but they are not, as Crary might have you believe, only used to do so. Young users empathize with one another and with other media via these technologies. Crary argues that these technologies inhibit empathy and emotional response, instead driving the user to repetitive motions in search for a fulfillment such technology cannot offer. Though these technology do promote repetitive use, this does not inherently inhibit empathy, especially for people who have grown up with smartphones as a natural part of human communication.

Again, Crary’s argument is on the whole an overwhelmingly accurate polemic on the problems with our increasingly connected and tech-dependent society. In its current state, a 24/7 world promotes dependency on technology and the companies that create it, creating narcissistic subjects who increasingly routinize their lives in order to be on top of the always fickle “next best thing”. However, with an increase in STEM education and an awareness of the potential for these technologies as direct forms of empathetic communication, maybe we can continue to develop technologies that bring us closer to Haraway’s cyborg utopia without losing our human rhythms and autonomy along the way. 

[newmediatheorypractice]

Week 14: RescueTime App

Kayla Walsh

Why are humans obsessed with machines? Partly, because machines don’t need to sleep. Our lives are regulated by the capitalistic clock. We are always running constantly from one task to another. We take drugs to help us stay awake (coffee is a profitable market). But we want to go further than just that- we want to reach what Crary calls: “an augmented condition” where we can function at full cognition without sleep. 

And until we reach this point (which government agencies and researchers are jointly pursuing), we continually obsess more and more about our time management. If we can’t stay up 24/7, we might as well be 100% efficient in what we accomplish each and every day in order to feed the capitalist system.

One time management app which I found intriguing is called Rescue Time. The name itself insinuates that any time not spent working is essentially wasted and in need of “rescuing”. According to their website, RescueTime “tracks time spent on applications and websites, giving you an accurate picture of your day.” 

After seeing that you’ve spent 2 collective hours checking facebook, this app allows you to see that information and then urges you to change your habits. Users can track their time away from their computers, get alerts when they achieve daily goals, block distracting websites to stay focused and keep a log of their daily practices. This serves to prove that  clock time is the only time that we care about- not seasonal or diurnal cycles.

“The denial of sleep is the violent dispossession of self by external force, the calculated shattering of an individual,” according to Crary. This suggests that we lose our sense of selves operating within this competitive, global, homogenous technological regime. 

To say that we are asleep and vulnerable individuals is to say that we are negating our responsibility to capitalism which historically guaranteed us security and prosperity. Therefore, this insinuates that the sleepless individual is the powerful, vigilant individual, and RescueTime helps achieve this state of being.

The reality is that in our techno-centric era, what we define as “new media” is constantly evolving. RescueTime will soon be replaced by an app that can also bio-monitor our brain waves instead of running in the background of our computers, making it easier for us to contribute to capitalism and fetishize the ‘efficient individual’. 

However, as Crary puts it, the individual will be compromised as society becomes increasingly homogenized by this technology. As Crary says, “Products are hardly just devices or physical apparatuses, but various services and interconnections that quickly become the dominant or exclusive ontological templates of one’s social reality.”

[newmediatheorypractice]

787 Cliparts, Oliver Laric

[newmediatheorypractice]

Versions 2012, Oliver Laric

[newmediatheorypractice]

Versions 2010, Oliver Laric

[newmediatheorypractice]

Versions 2009, Oliver Laric

[newmediatheorypractice]

RIP In Pieces America / Dominic Gagnon

"Flag as inapproriate". This unconspicuous button with a flag icon appears underneath every single YouTube video we watch marking the limits of our freedom in the Internet.

RIP In Pieces America , Dominic Gagnon

[newmediatheorypractice]

Global Countdown, Andrew Norman Wilson

[newmediatheorypractice]

Transform if you like!